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Back in April, I was asked to assist Mystery Dog Rescue with their web site and their push for the Big Give 2017. My boss has fostered puppies for them and we are now on the second litter of kittens for them, so we thought it might be a fun day to help out.

For the Big Give 2017, I designed a specialized microsite that we utilized to point people to on social media discussing the needs of Mystery Dog Rescue, and hourly prizes that were given out to the largest giver during the campaign.

It was a huge success. In past Mystery Dog Rescue Big Give campaigns they have struggled to hit their target goal and usually only make one-thousand dollars. This year, because of an aggressive social media and prize strategy, we were able to raise $3,495. Just narrowly missing their target of $3,500. Still a success.

Because of the success of this campaign, I was asked to join the Board of Directors for Mystery Dog Rescue. I am the Board Member At Large, and my main duties are to maintain the web site, and the social media presence and to assist at any adoption events that MDR may hold. This works out perfectly, because I have been looking for ways I can volunteer within the community and then this falls into my lap. I get to use my technical skills to help little puppies and kittens find their forever homes. A really great way to spend a Saturday.

I am working on a redesign of the MDR website to add some functionality that it desperately needs and a way to keep the site constantly updated, with either new pet photos or with news of events that are coming up. Additionally, there is currently not a way to get foster parents to sign up to take an animal into their home, or for volunteers to sign up to join us at any events. These I think will be the main challenges I will focus on.

Tonight was a big night for me. I have been doing an iOS development course on Udemy. I just finished section 2 of the course.

And I made my first app.

It is a very simple app. All it does is take the input age of your cat, converts the string into an integer, multiplies it by the number of years that a cat has to people and then outputs that number down below.

With a cute picture of a kitten to boot.

I guess technically this is the second app I have made, the first tho was much simpler and only did the most basic of input and output.

You can input a string, and the app outputs it into a label box.

Tomorrow we start Swift Playgrounds, which allows you to work with code without having to run the slow iOS simulator.

Should be fun.

I am enjoying the challenge this course offers so far, and am excited for it to get a bit more challenging. Especially when we start making clones of popular apps. It will be neat to see the mechanics behind instagram and snapchat.

Instead, I am thinking up projects I would like to accomplish in 2017. During SXSW I got to play with a project kit from Spark Fun. It wasn’t anything big. I made a programmable lanyard by soldering a few wires onto a micro-controller and then soldering on an LCD screen. I had a ton of fun doing such a simple project, but I wanted to do more than that.

Some of my Christmas money this year went to purchasing an Arduino starter kit. I have been wanting to pick up an Arduino for a few years now, and so I finally pulled the plug and purchased a basic kit to learn how the system works.

My long-term goal is to build a simple robot using the Arduino system.

Additionally, I have been working on some Udemy courses to up my programming skill. I am very familiar with HTML, but I struggle with CSS sometimes. I have been learning Ruby and Javascript.

In 2017, I will build an APP. The main focus of learning on Udemy is that I want to make a simple iPhone APP. As a life skill. I have a few simple ideas for apps to build, and I think I can knock them out fairly quickly.

This year has had some interesting challenges, but I am trying to focus on the positives of the year.

Journeys

This year, I was more active in my traveling. I started the year off by visiting Pensacola, Florida again for another wonderful Pensacon. The place I enjoyed visiting the most would be Detroit. We flew up for Motor City Comicon this year in the early part of May. This will mark the farthest North I have ever traveled. Detroit and the small suburb of Novi were a wonderful experience. The food was tasty, the people were friendly. It even snowed on us while we were up there, which was a treat. Snow, in May!

After this big trip, I stayed at home, up until I took a nice trip up to Denton, Texas to visit some friends and meet some old friends for the first time. This was a wonderful trip because I finally met one of the cohosts from our old podcast. It was really interesting to talk to him, and it revitalized my passion for photography hanging out with so many photographers that weekend. I also had the wonderful opportunity to visit with Carla, from Boston. Carla is a kind person who entertains my shenanigans on the internet. It was neat to hang out and chat all weekend.

Cons

Oh boy, I started the year planning a recap for every con I went to. But I forgot to do it and got sidetracked. So here is a list of every con I worked in 2016:

Only 6? I feel like there was more this year, I may have forgotten them.

Concerts

This year was light on the live music. I did attend the Warped Tour and saw some truly fantastic bands. The surprise band that I fell in love with at that show was The Interrupters. They have a killer sound that I really recommend. I’ve actually seen them twice now since they came through town on their own tour.

Awolnation was another surprising band, they came through twice this year as the opening act for Prophets of Rage and Fallout Boy, and both times had a sound that was really interesting and entertaining.

Volunteer work

This year, I had the opportunity to volunteer at some really great events. The first opportunity came when the local library was looking for volunteers for their Mini Maker Fair. I have wanted to attend a Maker Fair for a number of years now, and I thought it might be very enjoyable to volunteer at one. I had a blast and it was really great to see the tech side of San Antonio coming out in force for this event.

In addition to this, I worked two start-up weekends as a mentor/coordinator. We helped some entrepreneurs work on the business plan for their idea and turn them into full-fledged businesses. One of the small companies we mentored actually just launched their product and I am excited to see where they go.

Fun Shenanigans

I was unfortunately very busy this year, and so my fun shenanigans were very limited. I did get to visit Enchanted Rock, which is a large dome of granite thrust up into the sky in the middle of the Texas Hill Country.

Additionally, I was able to visit SXSW and get a glimpse of what the future might hold some very large Tech companies and play with some neat gadgets. I hopefully will be able to attend again in 2017.

Earlier this week, a weird storm rolled through San Antonio, whipping up some serious wind and hail over the city. Fortunately the damage at my house wasn’t too terribly severe.

The big tree by the front of my house took a bit of a beating and even broke this massive limb.
I had to pull it down because it was too high up to saw off, and I felt it was unsafe to leave hanging. It could come down and smash into my neighbors house or car or my own. So I used the opportunity and tugged on it till it snapped all the way and then jumped back to let it fall safely to the ground.

As you can see this limb was massive, it is sitting in my drive way but is long enough that it completely covers my neighbors drive way. I had trouble dragging it and even lifting it up.

I went into my house to search for some rope thinking I could tie it to the back of my car and use the car to drag it when I found this antique axe that I thought could work. It hasn’t been sharpened in decades and it felt a little loose, but with some careful swings I was able to hack off the branches on the tree and make a nice pile for when disposal happens later this month.

The big takeaway from this for me, is never discount older tools. It may take a little bit longer, but it will still get the job done.